Category: Therapy & Counselling

Schema therapy

A schema is an organized pattern of thought and behavior. It can also be described as a mental structure of preconceived ideas, a framework representing some aspect of the world, or a system of organizing and perceiving new information.

Maladaptive schema’s are self-defeating emotional and cognitive patterns established from childhood and repeated throughout life. They may be made up of emotional memories of past hurt, tragedy, fear, abuse, neglect, unmet safety needs, abandonment, or lack of normal human affection in general.

Core Emotional Needs
Our basic view is that schema’s result from 5 unmet core emotional needs in childhood.

1. Secure attachments to others (includes safety, stability, nurturance,
   and acceptance)
2. Autonomy, competence, and sense of identity
3. Freedom to express valid needs and emotions
4. Spontaneity and play
5. Realistic limits and self-control

Life situations that a person finds disturbing or offensive, or arouse bad memories, are referred to as “triggers” that tend to activate schema modes. In psychologically healthy persons, schema modes are mild, flexible mind states that are easily pacified by the rest of their personality. In clients with personality disorders, schema modes are more severe, rigid mind states that may seem split off from the rest of their personality.

Schema domains are five broad categories of unmet needs into which are grouped 18 early maladaptive schema’s identified by Young, Klosko & Weishaar (2003).

18 maladaptive schema’s and it’s relevant believe system

I. Disconnection and rejection

1. Abandonment/Instability – Perceived instability of one’s connection to significant others.
2. Mistrust/abuse – Other people will use the patient for their own selfish ends.
3. Emotional Deprivation – Expectation that one’s desire for emotional connection will not be adequately fulfilled.
4. Defectiveness/Shame – feeling that one is flawed, bad, inferior, or worthless and that one would be unlovable to others if ex-posed.
5. Social Isolation/alienation – sense of being different from or not fitting into the larger social world outside the family.

II. Impaired autonomy and performance

1. Dependence/Incompetence – one is unable to handle one’s everyday responsibilities in a competent manner, without considerable help from others.
2. Vulnerability to harm or illness – The belief system involving the exaggeration of fear that catastrophe will strike at any time; the catastrophes may be medical, emotional, or external.
3. Enmeshment/Undeveloped Self – Excessive emotional involvement and closeness with others (often parents) at the expense of full individuation or normal social development.
4. Failure – belief that one will fail in everything.

III. Impaired limits

1. Entitlement/grandiosity – belief that one is superior to other people, exaggerated focus on superiority.
2. Insufficient self-control/self-discipline – The conflict between life goals and low self control, perhaps seeking comfort instead of trying to perform daily responsibilities.

IV. Other-directedness

1. Subjugation – belief that one should surrender control to others, suppressing desires in order to avoid anger, retaliation, or abandonment.
2. Self-sacrifice – Excessive focus on voluntarily meeting the needs of others in daily situations at the expense of one’s own desire.
3. Approval-Seeking/Recognition-Seeking – Excessive emphasis on gaining approval, recognition, or attention from other people or on fitting in at the expense of developing a secure and true sense of self.

V. Overvigilance and inhibition

1. Negativity/pessimism – A pervasive, lifelong focus on the negative aspects of life, including pain, death, loss, disappointment, conflict, guilt, resentment, unsolved problems, potential mistakes, betrayal, while minimizing or neglecting the positive oroptimistic aspects.
2. Overcontrol/emotional inhibition – The excessive inhibition of spontaneous action, feeling, or communication, usually to avoid disapproval by others, feelings of shame, or losing control of one’s impulses.
3. Unrelenting Standards/Hypercriticalness – The underlying belief that one must strive to meet very high internalized standards of behavior and performance, usually to avoid criticism.
4. Punitiveness – The belief that people should be harshly punished for making mistakes. Involves the tendency to be angry, intolerant, and impatient with those people who do not meet one’s expectations or standards.

The goal of schema therapy is to help clients to changing the cognitive patterns connected to the schema and replace maladaptive coping styles and responses with adaptive patterns of behavior.

More resource;
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_maladaptive_schemas

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schema_therapy

Schema Therapy Institute